Marty and Joe: Soundtrack of summer

Broadcasting duo will be forever linked

Oct. 17, 2007

Joe Nuxhall hugs broadcasting partner Marty Brennaman in 2004 at a ceremony where the Reds celebrated the 60th anniversary of his debut with the organization. / Enquirer file/Ernest Coleman

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As a broadcaster, Joe Nuxhall was no Vin Scully when it came to using the language.

But the Ol’ Lefthander’s style – folksy and relaxed – made for easy listening.

Curt Smith has written three books on baseball broadcasting and is regarded as the pre-eminent chronicler of what sports announcers call a broadcasting art form. In his 2005 book “Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball’s All-Time Best Announcers,” Smith rated Nuxhall 95th.

For comparison, Waite Hoyt, who like Nuxhall was a former major-league pitcher and, (mostly with the Yankees, where his work got him elected to the Hall of Fame) could do Reds’ play-by-play and color commentary with equal aplomb, was rated 62nd.

It says something about the quality of Nuxhall’s down-home approach – something that played so well with longtime broadcasting partner Marty Brennaman’s, crisp, critical and sometimes caustic style – that “The Ol’ Lefthander” would rate so highly in Smith’s analysis.

“He would have been run out of Boston or New York, but he was perfect for Cincinnati,” Smith said in 2006, when the Reds were deciding who would replace Steve Stewart and team with Brennaman in the booth.

Nuxhall retired after the 2004 season -- though he continued to work select games -- and it was difficult to find a pairing as good as Marty and Joe.

Said Smith: “I know. I’ve listened to (Nuxhall) a lot, and I like him – but that kind of marriage doesn’t come along that often.”

Kindred spirits

“Marty and Joe” went down like lemonade on a hot Cincinnati day. They matched up like burgers with tomatoes on back decks, and forever will be linked, even in Joe’s passing.

Brennaman knew there would be no replacing that team, "Marty and Joe," not even when Marty’s son, Thom, joined his dad in the booth starting this season.

“Having Thom here certainly softens (getting only to do a handful of games with Joe during the 2007 season)," Marty said last April.

“The day Joe stepped down, I knew it would never be quite the same again,” Brennaman said. “Given time, hopefully we (Marty and Thom) will have the success that I had with Joe. I will always treasure the time I had with Joe and the love that we developed over the years.”

The Italians have a word for such kindred spirits: simpatico.

Author Smith, a student of language, linked Joe with Marty with that word.

“They had that simpatico,” he said. “You can’t invent it. Either it exists, or it doesn’t.”

And, yes, Marty and Joe clicked right from the beginning.

“The first time that Joe and I ever met,” Brennaman said, “the first thing out of my mouth within five minutes of meeting him was, ‘I got your baseball card!'”

Humorous start

The first time they broadcast a Reds “home” game together was at Al Lopez Field in Tampa, Fla., during spring training in 1974. Brennaman was replacing the popular Al Michaels, who had left Cincinnati for the San Francisco Giants’ play-by-play gig, and frequently had been told Brennaman had been saturated by people telling him what big shoes he had to fill, giving him and had a serious case of “Al Michaels on the brain.”

“So, we’re lined up … three in a row: engineer Ken Kimball, me in the middle and Joe on the other side,” Brennaman recalled in the book “Opening Day.”

“Ken cues me up to go on the air, and I say, ‘Good afternoon everyone, welcome to Al Michaels Field in Tampa, Florida.’”

And the reaction?

“As soon as I said it, I knew what I said,” Brennaman recalled. “Al Michaels Field. And that son of a (gun) Joe, he shows me no mercy. He’s rolling. I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. So I go to the obligatory commercial break before we came back to do the lineups, and the first thing out of Joe’s mouth during the break is, ‘I’ll be damned. We haven’t even gotten to the regular season yet and I’ve got material for the banquet circuit next fall!’”

Brennaman was rated by Smith as the 31st greatest baseball broadcaster of all-time. Michaels, by the way, ranked 22nd.

Down-home style

Smith is critical of most former players who have tried to do play-by-play. But he liked Nuxhall, despite Joe’s literal boosterism in the booth.

“Get up, get up, get outta here!” Nuxhall would say when a Reds player hit a ball that looked as if like it might get over the fence.

“To be really good at play-by-play, you have to use the language well, set the stage, capture the drama and sell the game to the public with your words,” Smith said.

Nuxhall was no Scully, the legendary Dodgers broadcaster, or Hoyt when it came to using the language. But he was good at setting the stage and decent at capturing the drama of a game. Toward the end of his career, Nuxhall lost his edge a bit and it became harder to follow the action through Joe’s description. But Joe was Joe, and no listeners – certainly no longtime listeners – seemed to mind.

Strong at the finish

In 2004, when Nuxhall was preparing for the last of 37 straight years of full-time game broadcasts (he had started on Opening Day, 1967; Brennaman came long seven years later), a newspaper reporter wrote that the Ol’ Lefthander would be remembered for who he is, not who he was.

Now it is reversed. Nuxie will remembered for who he was.

Which is quite a guy.

In his final game that year, Marty and Joe were still so good together that when when one got choked up at some memory, the other took over without missing a beat. But there was no escaping the need for a solo at the broadcast’s end, so there was nobody to pick up for Joe when he had to wrap it all up.

“For the last time,” he began, “It’s the Ol’ Lefthander …”

He paused briefly to regroup, and, then, in a shaking voice, said, “ … rounding third and heading for home.’”